A Talk on Cultural Corporate Sponsorship at the Times Center

Corporate sponsorship and branding were the topics of a panel discussion held yesterday at the Times Center. Organized by the Alliance for the Arts and hosted by The New York Times, the event brought together three experts on corporate philanthropy: Arthur Cohen (LaPlaca Cohen consulting), Glyn Northington (Target), and Andrew Hamingson (The Public Theater), and was moderated by Times’ culture reporter Patricia Cohen. While each speaker brought a unique perspective to the table – that of corporate community relations, nonprofit performing arts organizations, and nonprofit marketing – they seemed generally to share a common stance with regard to the panel’s theme. That stance was that corporate sponsorship, when done right, works great, so get on board. The consonance of their opinions and experience made for a coherent and informative panel, if not a particularly challenging one.

All three presenters emphasized that corporate sponsorship and philanthropy (terms they used more or less interchangeably) was about building a mutually beneficial partnership. Cohen used the metaphor of finding the right dance partner, showing a clip of Fred and Ginger and sharing Katharine Hepburn’s (in)famous quote: “He gave her class, and she gave him sex.” In the nonprofit-corporate relationship, typically the nonprofit provides visibility and the corporation supplies money. (I recommend taking a look at Cohen’s very accessible power point, "Corporate Sponsorship Now", available here.)

Northington spoke frankly about Target’s priorities in partnering with arts organizations—they want to reach a wide audience and build the Target brand through affiliations with education and family programming. Target, which commits a noteworthy 5% of its income to corporate social responsibility, tries to coordinate its branding across the organizations it supports, for example, through supporting nationwide family days and making publicity materials visually consistent.

TED honors artist that brings awareness to urban injustice

Some of JR's urban interventions 

I heard a lot of buzz about French artist JR when I was living in Brazil last year. The photo-graffiti artist, with the help of volunteers, had covered building façades in Rio's favelas with colossal portraits of favela residents--asserting a human face on some of the city's poorest neighborhood and forcing outsiders to actually take a look. It's nice to see that TED is recognizing the power of artistic practice -one that is grassroots, independent, and even, at times, illegal- to raise awareness of social justice issues. The award comes with $100,000 along with the opportunity for the winner to make a wish to change the world that the TED helps to support.

See JR's work on the TED website or read about the award in today's NY Times. JR's work calls to mind the more localized work of São Paulo graffiti artists and activists Jonato, Everaldo, and Paula whose work, Morro da Macumba, I featured on this blog. 

Make Music New York 2010

The Yale Percussion Group at the Naumburg Bandshell 

There were over 1,000 free musical happenings today in New York for the city’s fourth annual Make Music New York festival. I’m proud to say I made it to three. Make Music New York (MMNY) is a day-long music fest open to anyone that wants to make music or enjoy music being made in the city’s public spaces. New York is one of over 300 cities worldwide to hold free music festivals on the longest day of the year after France's Fête de la Musique. 

Though I’ve sung the praises of France’s Fête, I must admit to have being totally ignorant of Make Music New York’s existence until I was handed a program for it at last Sunday at Summer Stage. At first glimpse (1000 musical acts!!) I felt a bit overwhelmed.  A full day dedicated to music in the midst of the city’s abundant free summer concert series? It felt like second dessert. But when I read deeper into the program, I realized that this was different from those series curated for the large stages at Central or Prospect Parks—this was about making music, and you didn’t have to be a vetted act, or even a professional musician, to take part. The other main difference was that the shows were happening in community spaces--on sidewalks, in small parks, around the city’s monuments--and that I didn't have to leave my neighborhood to attend.

The first show I attended was the Yale Percussion Group playing a selection of three pieces by Iannis Xenakis at the Naumburg Bandshell in Central Park. I did have to leave my neighborhood to catch this one, but it was worth the 15 minute subway ride.

Creativity and policy reform

The fact that Arts+Culture is listed as one of the key initiatives of the The Opportunity Agenda, a New York-based organization committed to "building the national will to expand opportunity in America," is very exciting to me. This rights-based leadership, research, and advocacy organization has recognized the important role of arts and media to "create a window into the possible" when it comes to changing public opinion about immigration.

Favianna Rodriguez, David Henry Hwan, and Chung-Wha Hong
Photo courtesy of The Opportunity Agenda

It was this notion that framed last Wednesday's dialogue and multimedia presentation, Immigration: Arts, Culture & Media held at Florence Gould Hall in Manhattan. As I entered the theater, I was greeted by projected images of multimedia artist Kip Fulbeck, front-on portraits of multiethnic individuals holding white pages in front of them that listed their diverse cultural backgrounds. The images reminded me of happy mug shots, as though the artist was challenging the way American society has come to criminalize immigration.

The lights faded and we were shown clips from popular TV shows, movies, and stand up comedians that challenged negative assumptions about immigrants. Alan Jenkins, The Opportunity Agenda's co-founder and director introduced the even and the night's moderator, the dynamic Maria Hinojoso. Acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair started the evening on a surprising note by indicating during her keynote address that she doesn't consider herself an immigrant per se but as someone who is strongly rooted in three places, on three continents (New York, Uganda, and India). She spoke about confronting ethnic stereotypes in her early work with humor and talent. For Nair, the artist's first responsibility is to her craft, and good work could take an important social justice stand. She also spoke about empowerment as the ability to tell one's own story, this the motto of her East African film training organization, Maisha.

Who Protects Antiquity? Three Models

Who protects antiquity? Apparently, highly-educated, middle-aged white men in dark suits, I couldn't help thinking as I entered the Proshansky Auditorium at the CUNY Graduate Center last Wednesday evening. The suits, James Cuno, Lawrence Rothfield, and Lawrence Coben, moderated by Joel Allen, were gathered on the stage to debate just who is responsible for protecting our ancient heritage and, an even more problematic question, how to go about doing so. As a newcomer to questions surrounding antiquity and its preservation, I learned a lot.

Each panelist had a different take on the crisis facing antiquity today and a different proposal to solve it. Cuno passionately decried the ascription of national boundaries to the archaeological remains of peoples or civilizations, which knew no state lines. The artificial nationalization of artifacts, he argued, keeps nation states from understanding their role as stewards of antiquity, with an obligation to act in their best interest, even when it means relinquishing objects and sites to foreign museums, universities or teams of archaeologists. For Cuno, something like the bygone practice of partage, whereby foreigners were allowed to excavate sites in return for sharing the spoils with the source country, would be a way to save and study the world's treasures.

Rothfield focused on the problem of looters who are pillaging important heritage sites. He led us through an economic analysis of the looting process, blaming the prevalence of looting on the incentives created by collectors (individual and institutional) who put a premium on particular objects. The result was a negative externality: the destruction of the sites of ancient heritage at the hands of profit-seeking thieves. Taking his economic logic one step forward, Rothfield proposed that the demand side should bare the cost of the externality in a tax that would feed into a global antiquity protection fund. This fund would then be used to cover the cost of securing sites in source countries with low capacity to do so on their own.

Legitimizing (and questioning) culture’s utility

Early last Thursday morning I joined other students of cultural policy and international relations to hear a panel discussion on the topic of cultural diplomacy. The panel, entitled “Culture as a tool: Diplomacy and International Exchange in the 21^st Century” was co-presented by NYU’s John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress and the Wagner School’s Student Network Exploring Arts and Culture (SNEAC). Moderated by Frank Hodsoll, CEO of the Resource Center for Cultural Engagement and former chairmen of the NEA, the panel brought together representatives from UNESCO, The Asia Society, and the Instituto Cervantes in New York. The result was a series of interesting presentations that addressed some of the ways in which culture is being understood and engaged as a vehicle for larger objectives: fighting terrorism worldwide, promoting the foreign policy agendas, building grassroots understanding and dialogue among different cultures; and strengthening cultural identities and social cohesion.

I learned a great deal about how culture is being framed and funded in service of diplomacy or cultural understanding in different settings. Hodsell reminded us of America’s dismal record of supporting cultural on any front. In terms of “cultural engagement” (this seems to be the new catchphrase for cultural diplomacy) in foreign policy, he said, the Department of State is doing very little and what it is doing relies mostly on projecting the American image outward. Interestingly (and frighteningly for some) the Department of Defense has invested heavily in public diplomacy and is using culture as a way to build a better understanding of “other” cultures’ views. Towards the end of his talk, Hodsell alluded to the important ways in which culture leads to social change, citing Hugh Masekela’s music in Apartheid South Africa. In my experience, however, government support when culture workers use creativity to challenge injustice, is insufficient.

Culture, Policy, and Social Change

Over the next two months, I am going to be blogging about some of the intersection of arts and culture and social change efforts, some grassroots and others top-down. These blog entries are part of some research on international cultural policy that I'm conducting with the guidance of Professor Ruth Ann Stewart at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service.

For the most part, I will commenting on panel discussions and lectures on this theme taking place here in New York City. If you want to check out any these events (the first has already passed), you can click on the links below to find out more information. And if you hear of other events I should attend, please let me know.

Culture as a Tool: Diplomacy and International Exchange in the 21st Century

Thursday, March 25

8:00 AM

The Puck Building

Who Protects Antiquity?

Wednesday, April 7

6:30 PM

Proshansky Auditorium

Romanticide: Love, Art and Codependency in Art and Cultural Politics

Wednesday, April 7

6:30 PM

19 Washington Square North

Immigration: Arts, Culture and Media 2010

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Florence Gould Hall

The Role of Art and Culture in Bridging the Divide Between the United States and the Muslim World

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

6:00-8:30 PM

[I still have so much to share with you from my time in Uganda, but it will unfortunately have to wait until after graduation in May. Below is a Uganda teaser: a troop of young performers from two orphanages who have mastered Uganda's diverse forms of music and dance and were in residence at Uganda's National Theatre the weeks I was working there. I got to sneak into a rehearsal and was blown away by their talent and professionalism. The youths below are playing traditional cowhide drums called ngoma that wobbled and spun around as they were energetically pounded.]

Reporting from Kampala

After two blog-less months I am back to share my experiences in Kampala, Uganda where I will be spending the next two weeks to carry out a program evaluation for Maisha Film Lab. (The evaluation project is part of my Master's degree program and takes the place of a thesis.) Maisha is a training institute for East African filmmakers and has been running month-long screenwriting and technical labs since 2005.

During the next two weeks myself and my partner will be interviewing over a hundred past Maisha lab participants to get an idea of the impact the labs are having on thesefilmmakers' careers and on the East African film industry more broadly.

When I'm not working, I'm hoping to get a taste of Kampala cultural life. Stay tuned...